High and rising income inequality is a serious concern in many countries, as highlighted in the IMF’s recent Fiscal Monitor. Wealth, however, is distributed even more unequally than income, as in the picture below.

The first ever meeting of the Heads of Procurement of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) took place on June 20-21 in Barbados with the dark storm clouds of Tropical Storm Bret as the backdrop. Fittingly, the discussion focused on how to create a common market for public procurement and to use procurement as a tool to better prepare for and respond to the natural disasters endemic to the region.

Governments spend a lot of money to contain violence. In 2015, some $1.7 trillion was spent on defense by governments worldwide . While the primary responsibility for the provision of security and justice services lies with governments, those functions may carry a heavy fiscal burden as they often make up significant portions of national budgets. Yet little work has been undertaken on the composition of security sector budgets, or on the processes by which they are planned and managed.

In an effort to address this issue, the World Bank Group and the United Nations embarked on a three-year partnership that led to the publication of a new report titled Securing Development: Public Finance and the Security Sector. It is a sourcebook providing guidance to governments and development practitioners on how to use a tool called “Public Expenditure Review (PER)” adapted to examine the financing of security and criminal justice institutions.

School children in Kingston, Jamaica. Strong public financial management affects all facets of government spending, including education. Photo credit: UN Photo/Milton Grant

Finance ministers, auditors-general, and leaders of professional accounting organizations are meeting Tuesday in Nassau to discuss a topic that is often hidden from view, but is critical to quality of life in the Caribbean: Capacity and standards in public financial management.

How governments manage taxes, borrowing and spending is essential to economic growth, to poverty-reduction, and to ensuring that the region’s poorest can improve their lives. It is a core function of accountability in government. Improvements in this area could increase the health of small and medium-sized enterprises, create jobs, and bring in additional government revenues to spend on essential public services. Residents of Caribbean nations: this strategic dialogue will be about how the government manages your money.

Young students in rural areas of Argentina. Photo: Nahuel Berger / World Bank

Public schools in the Province of Buenos Aires generally provide school books and other learning materials to students free of charge. This is important, as the poorest 40 percent of Argentina’s population relies disproportionately upon public services such as education. But, what happens when schools cannot purchase books for students?

Fixed expenditures, including personnel costs, generally leave limited space for other quality-enhancing education expenditures, such as school books and training materials. Faced with an unexpected pressure on such fixed expenditures in 2013, some schools were suddenly forced to cut down significantly on teacher training materials and other educational resources generally provided free of charge. As a result, a number of parents were suddenly forced to decide between purchasing learning materials for their children’s education, or paying bills.

Uruguay stands out in Latin America and the Caribbean for the significant and early progress it achieved in terms of social protection.

Now gaining global attention, Uruguay is pioneering an award-winning information system to reduce poverty and vulnerability. The system addresses challenges faced by many governments in targeting and coordinating social assistance and, with reduced costs from license-free software, it could soon be replicated in other countries.

Note from the editors: The following is an interview with Patricia Arriagada, former acting Comptroller General of Chile, and Patricio Barra Aeloiza, Head of Accounting Analysis Division of the Comptroller General Office, who have been instrumental in recent reforms of public financial management systems in Chile.

Starting in 2010, Chile embarked on a journey to improve public sector accounting by converging to an international standard of financial reporting by 2016. The country expects to produce its first fully compliant financial statements in 2019. One main objective of this reform is to ensure that financial information generated by the government accounting system is comprehensive, reliable, and useful for decision-making. Another is to increase the levels of fiscal and financial transparency and accountability in the public sector.

Patricia Arriagada,
former acting Comptroller General
of Chile

These reforms were driven by the Comptroller General office, is what is known as a “Supreme Audit Institution,” and is responsible for monitoring revenues and expenditures in all parts of the government – in particular, ensuring the quality and credibility of financial management and financial reporting.